Iranian Satellite Launch Fails

It seems Iran’s offer to help
Muslim countries launch satellites was a bit premature.

According to the Iranians this launch was a grand success of course, but a
U.S. intelligence official said "it was a rather dismal display",
and an anonymous Pentagon official
had this to say:

the Safir (“Messenger”) rocket was launched just before
3 p.m. ET on Saturday from a base near Semnan in northern Iran, carrying what
he called a "crude communications satellite" with only "limited
capability."

Soon after reaching an altitude above 500,000 feet, the missile failed and
broke apart, the source said. The missile broke up when the second stage was
firing, and the resulting debris was scattered across Iran and the Gulf of Oman,
he said. The rocket was apparently aiming for an orbit about 400 miles (650
kilometers) high, inclined to the equator about 62 degrees.

A more upfront account comes from the U.S.
Navy:

Iran’s flight test of a space launch vehicle failed Aug. 17, according
to radar tracking by a U.S. Navy destroyer and infrared data from U.S. Air Force
Defense Support Program (DSP) missile warning spacecraft.

Key data on the failure were provided by the USS
Russell, an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer patrolling the Persian Gulf.

It is unclear what the exact payload of this missile was. According to the
Iranians, it was a dummy
satellite but . . . earlier
official reports said that the missile launch was carrying a Hope (Omid)
communications satellite.

Crossposted from Ken McCracken